Baby's Body Thrown Out With Waste

April 11, 2000|By JENNI BERGAL Staff Writer

A newborn infant who died shortly after birth was mistaken for medical waste and accidentally incinerated at a Boynton Beach hospital late last month, according to a report filed by Boynton Beach police.

The mix-up occurred after a cleaning woman at Bethesda Memorial Hospital in Boynton Beach allegedly picked up the baby's remains, believing they were a wad of dirty sheets, and threw them away for disposal with bio-hazardous waste, a police investigation found.

"This was obviously a tragic mistake, however it was just that, a mistake," Boynton Beach Police Det. Toby Athol wrote in a March 28 report. Police found no evidence of any criminal activity.

Lisa Kronhaus, public relations director for Bethesda Memorial, said she could not comment about the incident.

"We've been asked not to say or release any information " Kronhaus said Monday. "It is pending litigation, and we have been asked to refrain from any comment."

The incident has left the child's mother, Guerline Gustamas, 21, of Boynton Beach, traumatized, said her attorney, Andrew Winston.

"It was just horrifying for her," Winston said Monday.

Winston said Gustamas delivered the baby at home on March 18. The girl, named Brithney, had multiple birth defects and was taken to Bethesda Memorial, where she died on March 22, only 4 days old.

Then began what Winston described as a "nightmare" for the child's mother. He said that for nine days, Gustamas tried to make funeral arrangements for the child, but was told by hospital staffers that the body could not be located.

Finally, on March 31, Gustamas was called to Bethesda Memorial's risk management department, where she was offered apologies and told the baby's body had been taken to the hospital's morgue, mistaken for medical waste and destroyed, Winston said.

"The most horrifying thing about this was that the hospital dealt with this so cavalierly," Winston said. "This mother can't bury her daughter now."

Winston said the situation is especially disturbing to Gustamas, a mother of two from Haiti, because her culture strongly believes in burial rather than cremation.

Police began investigating the case after they were called by the hospital's security coordinator, who said there was a discrepancy in the morgue's log and staff could not account for one of the bodies.

The police investigation found that the cleaning woman was a new employee unfamiliar with the methods the morgue used to handle deceased infants, who routinely are wrapped in a yellow material and placed on the floor.

The woman, who was instructed to clean up the morgue, said she collected bloody sheets, pillow cases and the yellow material from the floor and threw them in the bio-hazardous waste bin for incineration -- and had no idea a baby's body was inside.

Two years ago, a similar accident occurred at a North Miami Beach hospital.

In April 1997, a stillborn baby accidentally was carted away with Parkway General Hospital's dirty linens and sent 260 miles to a laundry near Daytona Beach.

A hospital official said a nurse had wrapped the baby in a blanket and put him on a stretcher covered with linens. The linens were then put in a hamper and taken to the cleaning plant.

Jenni Bergal can be reached at jbergal@sun-sentinel.com or at 954-356-4592.